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Call PIPELINE-2026

Dutch Cancer Society (KWF)

Background

Treatment options remain inadequate for many types of cancer, underscoring the urgent need for new and innovative cancer drugs that address unmet medical needs and improve patient outcomes.

Rapid advancements in academic research, particularly in understanding molecular pathways and the functioning of biological systems, provide the foundation for developing new drugs—defined here as originator medicinal products. Typically, the transition from academic innovation, to investigational medicinal product, to market-ready medicinal product is driven by industry. However, not all academic innovations are pursued by industry for clinical development. Among many reasons, such as uncertainties and suboptimal results, market- or ecosystem failure can also undermine development. When new drugs are not, or not yet, commercially viable or interesting, academics are challenged to take on development themselves. Unfortunately, the pathway for drug development by academics remains underdeveloped and is full with bottlenecks. Failures in the ecosystem for academic drug development include social and operational reasons for early termination of drug development, such as insufficient collaboration and a lack of resources.

When market- or ecosystem failure arises for new academic innovations, academic efforts are needed to complete development trajectories and reach patients in need. Therefore, the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) opens the call ‘PIPELINE’ to accelerate the development of academic innovations into new drugs.

Aim

The PIPELINE call focuses on advancing the clinical development of new drugs derived from academic research, with the potential to significantly improve treatment outcomes for cancer patients with unmet medical needs. Any drug that is regulated as a medicinal product within the European Union is eligible for PIPELINE.

Ambition

KWF sees an important role for academia in the development of new drugs from academic research, when development by industry is not, or not yet, viable. We aim to alleviate bottlenecks that academics face in drug development by providing financial support for clinical trials that can be conducted in collaboration with a wide range of partners, with opportunity for regulatory and business development support. PIPELINE recurs every year.

KWF collaborates with the Center for Drug Development (CDD) in the United Kingdom, a charity-funded drug development facility that is part of Cancer Research UK (CRUK). This collaboration enables early clinical development of new medicinal products for academics that do not desire to- or cannot initiate trials themselves, or for academics that would benefit from the expertise of CDD in phase I/IIa trials. The PIPELINE call serves as a sourcing mechanism for the CDD-KWF programme. More information on collaboration with the CDD is provided in the Specific Guidelines (for download below).

We envision proposals on clinical trials that are supported by interdisciplinary teams (researchers, pharmacists, healthcare professionals), possibly in collaboration with centres in Europe, industry and/or service providers. Academics can aim to reach clinical practice with their innovations themselves. Other innovations could be de-risked for transfer to industry through the generation of clinical data. Public-private partnerships are another route for product development in this call. We stimulate the involvement of micro (academic derived) enterprises. Under specific conditions funding for projected related cost incurred by micro enterprises may be granted. More information is provided in the Specific Guidelines (for download below).

Submission procedure

The call has a pre- and full-proposal submission procedure. Both the pre- and full- proposal must be written in English and submitted exclusively by the main applicant through the electronic submission system KWF Grant Management System (GMS).

The Scientific Evaluation Committee will select pre-proposals based on scientific excellence, developmental potential and patient impact potential. Selected applicants are invited to submit a full-proposal. Please note that full-proposals can be submitted by invitation only. GMS opens for pre-proposals on April 29, 2025.

More information on the submission procedure is available in the Specific Guidelines (for download below).

Timeline

Opening pre-proposals:	29 april 2025
Closure pre-proposals:	8 July 2025 (12.00 noon)
Opening full proposals:	30 September 2025
Closure full proposals:	9 December 2025 (12.00 noon)
Interviews:	February 2026
Funding decision:	March 2026

Indicative budget

The budget indication per proposal is 1 - 5 million euro.

AI Based Application Success Predictor

🎯 1. Aligned Call & Clear Scope

KWF organizes funding through structured Exploration, Development, Implementation, and Proof of Concept calls 

Select the correct call and funding mechanism—whether it’s a hypothesis-driven Research Project, a Young Investigator Grant, a high-risk pilot, or a clinical implementation project—to ensure initial eligibility 

🧬 2. Scientific Quality, Relevance & Feasibility

Proposals must excel in peer review, assessed for:

Relevance to KWF mission (cancer understanding or patient care)

Scientific quality (rigor, innovation)

Feasibility (team, methods, resources, realistic objectives)

🤝 3. Strong Multidisciplinary & Collaborative Teams

Research Projects require at least one scientific researcher (post-doc or PhD student) at ≥0.5 FTE 

Consortium Projects need explicit added value across partner organizations

Proof-of-Concept and Implementation rounds prioritize translational, often multi-institution proposals 

⚠️ 4. High‑Risk Pilot Projects & Innovation

Unique High Risk Projects target novel, early-stage ideas with theory-based hypotheses, piloted over 1–1.5 years

Success in these rounds can pave the way to future larger grants.

🧪 5. Rigorous Multi‑Stage Review

Pre-proposal: eligibility, classification, and board review

Full proposal: scientific peer review (≥3 experts)

Patient Advisory Committee (PACO) review of lay summaries and patient relevance

Board deliberation & scoring (1‑5 scale), with final prioritization

👉 What to Do:

Ensure your lay summary effectively communicates patient impact.

Embed patient/public involvement early in design.

⏱️ 6. Timeliness, Completeness & Compliance

Follow KWF’s schedules and guidelines carefully—calls typically run in defined timeframes (e.g., PoC closes Jan 21, 2025; Exploration closes May 14, 2024; Development closes Nov 2023; Pipeline closes Sep 2024).

Use the KWF grant portal and include all required attachments (budgets, FTE info, consortium letters).

🌍 7. Translational Mindset

KWF programs, especially Proof-of-Concept, Pipeline, and Implementation, emphasize translating discoveries into clinical tools or practices

Provide clear development-to-clinic planning and resource needs.

✅ 8. Value for Money & Scalability

There’s no hard cap—applications provide justified budgets across phases. KWF assesses cost-effectiveness and may extend or terminate funding based on progress

📋 Summary Table

Success Factor	Key Strategies
Call alignment	Pick right phase & mechanism
Scientific excellence	Emphasize relevance, rigor, feasibility
Team structure	Include key personnel and collaborators
Innovation orientation	Consider high-risk pilot options
Patient relevance	Write clear lay summaries and involve patients
Review compliance	Follow documentation, timelines, portals
Translation focus	Show clear path from bench to bedside
Budget rationale	Request justified funding with scalability plans

🛠️ Final Tips

Match your proposal to call type early—research, pilot, implementation.

Integrate patient/public involvement meaningfully in design and description.

Submit a compelling lay summary for review by both scientific and patient panels.

Prepare budgets that align with proposal scope and value-for-money.

Build translational plans, showing how results will progress beyond the lab.

Specialties

Cancer

Eligibility Requirements

Please check the Specific Guidelines (for download below) for more detailed requirements and scope.

Project and applicants

Research type: research project or consortia.
Research phase: clinical trials ranging from phase I to III. Confirmatory and/or pivotal trials may be considered if they fit within the indicative budget. Development of GMP manufacturing is allowed under specific rules.
Trial design: interventional, prospective, using the best-fitting trial design.
Lead institute: medical centre or research institute that must be located in the Netherlands.
Public participating parties: medical centre or research institute that must be located in Europe that carries part of the responsibility for the project. Medical centres can be involved as an external inclusion centre only, but in this role they are not considered a participating party.
Private participating parties: Public/Private collaborations are possible. For-profit private partners can participate only if they contribute (in-cash and/or in-kind, see Specific Guidelines).
Patient participation: it is required to actively involve patients in the set up and execution of the trial.

Product

Intervention: new investigational medicinal product (e.g. new chemical/biological entity, originator products).
Product type: all types of experimental drugs that fall within the legal EU definition of ‘medicinal product’ [1] (e.g. chemical substances such as chemotherapy, biological substances such as monoclonal antibodies, advanced therapy medicinal products such as T cell therapy).
A (preliminary) Target Product Profile is mandatory.
Indication: all cancer types, including rare- and paediatric cancers.
Scientific rationale: (pre)clinical research supports expected safety and efficacy outcomes.
Added clinical value: product development addressing unmet medical needs, with added value for the patient with respect to clinical safety and/or efficacy compared to current standard treatment.
Development plan and go-to-market/implementation strategy: clear development trajectory with supporting regulatory strategy and business development plan to reach the patient in clinical practice, including risk assessment.
Analysis of competitive advantage and IP position: comparison to similar approaches on the market or in development, rights to further develop and freedom to operate.
Clear and feasible manufacturing strategy: GMP manufacturing plan including Quality Control.

Out of scope

Repurposing of registered medicinal products for new indications.
Combination therapy of registered medicinal products only.
Preclinical research cannot be part of the project.
Private parties as a main applicant, or industry sponsored trials.
(Early) diagnosis of (recurrent) disease and/or monitoring during therapeutic interventions and/or patient stratification for therapeutic interventions, without interventional and drug development set-up (e.g., observational research).
Investigational products with no or limited freedom to operate.

Eligible Countries:

Netherlands

Sponsor Details

Sponsor Institute/Organizations: Dutch Cancer Society (KWF)

Sponsor Type: Corporate/Non-Profit

Address: Postbus 75508 1070 AM Amsterdam service@kwf.nl

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